


A Meeting Long Overdue

by Silex



Category: Dragon Ball
Genre: Family, Fluff, Friendship, Gen, Missing Scene, Slice of Life, Trick or Treat: Treat
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-10-31
Updated: 2019-10-31
Packaged: 2021-01-15 12:56:02
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,065
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21253742
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Silex/pseuds/Silex
Summary: Once a year, not necessarily for any holiday or special event, Bulma would always arrange a get-together for everyone who was alive at the moment, wasn’t away to some other planet, or off on some adventure, or misadventure and Chi-Chi helped. There was no telling who she might meet that he hadn't seen in years or ever met in person at all and at this one there's a surprise guest.





	A Meeting Long Overdue

**Author's Note:**

  * For [SoulJelly](https://archiveofourown.org/users/SoulJelly/gifts).

Once a year, not necessarily for any holiday or special event, Bulma would always arrange a get-together for everyone who was alive at the moment, wasn’t away to some other planet, or off on some adventure, or misadventure and Chi-Chi helped. Even between the two of them getting everything organized was a challenge, that the two of them were able to handle the cooking for all of the guests, invited and otherwise, never ceased to amaze her.

The way Bulma was able to rope her surly husband into helping out was hilarious to watch and equally amazing as managing to get everything ready. The verbal sparring between the two of them was something else, and made Chi-Chi thankful that Goku, for all of his faults, put so much effort into being the husband he was. Even if he spent a great deal of time away from home she knew he cared.

When he got back from saving the world yet again, he would always sit down at the kitchen table and tell her about his adventures while she cooked a big meal for him. It was one of their little routines, he’d tell her about everything he’d done and then ask her about her day, listening with rapt attention, as though cooking, cleaning, weeding the garden and helping Gohan with his schoolwork was every bit as impressive as saving the world. And who knew, maybe to him it was. Goku wasn’t that great in the kitchen, though he tried, and he certainly didn’t know how to repair his own clothing, much less sew the weights back into his training outfits when they got damaged, as they always did.

At the get-togethers, when verbal sparring with his wife got to be too much, Vegeta would start actual sparring with Goku despite Chi-Chi and Bulma’s protests.

Of course Chi-Chi didn’t protest too much, mostly for show so she could tell herself that she’d done what she could while she watched as the two of them threw punches faster than the eye could follow before taking to the air. It filled her with pride to see Goku in action when there wasn’t any danger. Seeing what her husband was capable of was breathtaking. A man like him, so kind and gentle at home, yet capable of feats of power that she wouldn’t believe if not for seeing, was so rare that there were times she still had difficult believing that she was so lucky. If there were times that she seemed angry at him, he knew it was only because she was afraid for him.

The gatherings at Bulma’s only cemented those thoughts, making her all the more glad for the time she could spend with her husband and his friends, get a little, safe, look into the half of his life that he tried so hard to keep away from the house.

Except it didn’t always work that way. He had such a strong sense of responsibility and Gohan had inherited that and so much else from his father.

There was a side to the men in her life that she only got the smallest glimpses of. Everyone told her that Gohan was every bit as impressive a fighter as his father, but Chi-Chi had never seen that. At home he was a shy, bookish boy. Even as he’d grown older into an otherwise shy, bookish teenager, joining in the sparring matches at the gatherings, Chi-Chi had a hard time imagining him in real danger, and not just because she was his mother.

Gohan, especially as he got older, helped her and Bulma organize the get-togethers, sending out invitations, making phone calls, helping her with the shopping and the cooking and doing anything else that might be asked of him.

The gatherings always made him so happy, giving him the chance to introduce and reintroduce Chi-Chi to his friends and share stories about the ones who couldn’t make it for one reason or another. He and Goku had so many friends that Chi-Chi couldn’t help being happy for them, even if she wished that those friends did more to keep them out of danger.

There was one friend though that never showed up to the gatherings and for that Chi-Chi was glad.

Gohan had nothing but good things to say about Piccolo, and Goku reassured her that he was a nice enough guy now, but Chi-Chi couldn’t help remembering the history between the two of them and how Piccolo was responsible for the worst time of her life when he’d kidnapped Gohan.

True Gohan had returned unharmed at the end of it all, but that had been a year of her son’s life that she wasn’t going to get back.

There were things she had to accept, like how often her husband and son would be away from her, but she didn’t have to like it.

Even if she was proud of what they’d done.

How many mothers, when calling their son’s school to explain his spotty attendance, could say it was because he was saving the world from aliens or traveling to collect the Dragon Balls to bring a friend back from the dead?

Even if the subject matter of his ‘what I did over summer vacation’ essays in grade school made her flinch she knew that every word of them was true.

And now, watching Gohan discussing some complicated technical matter with Bulma rather than sparring with his father and friends, as he prepared for getting into a university next year, filled her with pride.

Despite everything he was going to be graduating from high school a year early, taking all advanced classes.

She watched him, talking away, hardly noticing the shadow that passed overhead.

There were enough people flying around that stray shadows and flashes of light were hardly a thing to worry about.

Except Gohan froze and looked up with an awed expression.

Chi-Chi followed his gaze, wondering what someone had done to get his attention like that. She had to know what she was warning him against trying around the house after all unless he wanted to help her repair all the windows broken by shockwaves and sonic booms.

A striking turbaned figure, clad in purple, cape fluttering, descended near the edge of the gathering.

Gohan ran, not quite at blinding speed, but somewhere near there, to the unmistakable green man.

Piccolo.

Chi-Chi frowned as Gohan grabbed him by the hand and tried pulling him towards the others, talking excitedly all the while.

Piccolo remained in place, which Chi-Chi assumed meant that Gohan wasn’t trying that hard. She’d seen what he could do when he applied himself.

Only she and Bulma had noticed Piccolo’s arrival, everyone else distracted by an argument between Vegeta and Krillin about something.

Gohan kept motioning for Piccolo to come and join everyone else, gesturing at the table where all of the food that had yet to be decimated remained.

Gohan had wanted her to meet Piccolo for years and there was plenty for her to give him an earful about, she’d just never imagined that she’d get the chance. It wasn’t as though she hadn’t tried to find him, after she’d gotten word that he’d taken her son and then in later years to give him a piece of her mind about what he’d done to Gohan.

“You,” she strode over and jabbed a finger at Piccolo.

He stared impassively at her, eyes narrowed, expression unreadable.

If he thought she was going to be intimidated by that he had another thing coming.

“You kidnapped my son,” she snarled.

“Please mom,” Gohan, now nearly as tall as she was, stepped between the two of them, “That was a long time ago.”

“He needed training,” Piccolo said flatly.

“You could have at least brought him home to visit,” she retorted, though she knew it wouldn’t have worked that way.

Piccolo knew too, judging by his smirk.

The temptation to storm into the kitchen and then storm back out with the largest cast-iron pan she could find to try and wipe that smirk off of his face was strong.

Faced with the man who had stolen her son from her all those years ago, Chi-Chi felt rage and despair as fresh as the day it had happened.

“Or you should apologize,” she said, for Gohan’s sake she was trying to compromise.

“I did what I had to,” Piccolo crossed his arms over his chest.

What he had to.

Just like Goku and Gohan so often had to leave and risk their lives.

Except Gohan wouldn’t have joined in with any of it if not for Piccolo.

He would have stayed at home and been a good student and worried about his missing father rather than taking action and doing something about it.

He never would have put his life in danger.

But he never would have written any of those stories about what he did either, and then still manage to come home to help her with the dishes.

“Besides,” Piccolo glanced at Gohan with a look that Chi-Chi knew well, it was one she used often enough herself when Gohan brought home yet another passing grade on a test or talked about something new he’d learned in school, “I’m not here to talk to you.”

Chi-Chi started to ask why he was there, but the answer was obvious. Gohan had been trying to get Piccolo to come to one of their gatherings for years and this time he’d finally shown up.

“Why are you showing your face here now?” She demanded because it was the next best thing to asking why he was there at all.

Piccolo smirked at her, “Because there’s no way I’m showing up for his graduation party like he’s been begging me to for months now.”

When Gohan had asked if he could invite Piccolo to the party Chi-Chi had bitten her tongue and said yes, confident that Piccolo would never come. She just hadn’t expected this to be the result.

“Well, listen here,” she started, only to falter at Gohan’s expression. Piccolo was a part of his life, someone he admired, whether she liked it or not, “I know that you’re very important to Gohan so…thank you.”

It was difficult to say that when she wasn’t done being angry at Piccolo, but the man, if that was appropriate for a tall, green being with pointed ears and antennae, had been there for Gohan when Goku had been away, helped raise him and taught him what Chi-Chi couldn’t. There were things that Chi-Chi had never taught him and Goku certainly hadn’t, like restraint, and those had to have come from somewhere.

Even if she couldn’t forgive Piccolo, or even imagine being on speaking terms with him, she could still feel gratitude for what he had been for her son, a mentor and someone to give him an outlet for his power and to temper his strength.

“Happy now?” Piccolo said, looking at Gohan with something that wasn’t quite a smile, but almost.

Gohan nodded.

“Good.”

And with that Piccolo rose up into the air and vanished.

A moment later Goku showed up, looking up at the hole in the clouds where Piccolo had vanished through, “Was that…”

“Piccolo finally showed up!” Gohan said happily.

Chi-Chi nodded.

“And you didn’t deck him like you said you would if you ever saw him?” Goku said, awed.

“I didn’t,” Chi-Chi smiled, “I’ll leave that to you and Vegeta and the others.”

“Speaking of which,” Goku glanced over his shoulder to where Bulma was holding onto a shocked looking Vegeta, who was yelling at an equally shocked looking Krillin, “You wouldn’t believe how badly Vegeta let his guard down just now. Krillin actually managed to sucker punch him!”

“Should we go help?” Chi-Chi asked nervously, wondering what would happen if an actual fight broke out at the party.

“Vegeta or Krillin?” Gohan wondered as Bulma began to yell something about what would happen if she ended up needing to go looking for the Dragon Balls to bring someone back.

He did have a point, Bulma was a force to be reckoned with when she got mad.

Chi-Chi sighed and shook her head, her friends and family and their friends were something else, but whatever they were they were never boring.

And she wouldn’t have it any other way.

**Author's Note:**

> In your prompts you talked about parties and the possibility of Chi-Chi meeting Piccolo, which got me thinking.


End file.
